It took five years longer than planned, but the World Athletics Indoor Championships finally reached China. The 20th edition ran from 21 to 23 March 2025 in Nanjing, at a newly built arena known as the Cube in the Nanjing Youth Olympic Sports Park.
Nanjing won the bid on 26 November 2017, beating Belgrade and Toruń, Poland, for the right to stage the 2020 championships. Construction of the venue began that September. Then the pandemic intervened. The 2020 date was cancelled, then 2021, then 2023, each time because of COVID-19 regulations in China. Belgrade took the 2022 edition and Glasgow the 2024 one.
World Athletics described the Cube as the first venue in China to meet every condition for hosting the event. The city, home to 9.3 million people, had been building a track record in the sport through the National Indoor Athletics Grand Prix, the China Athletics Street Circuit and the Nanjing Marathon.
China had already staged almost every kind of World Athletics Series event, from the World Championships to the World Half Marathon Championships. The indoor championships were added in 2025, along with the World Athletics Relays.
The field
Organisers expected more than 500 athletes from about 120 nations across 26 disciplines. The final entry list ran to 576 athletes from 127 countries, and 517 from 118 countries competed. Qualifying ran from 1 September 2024 to 9 March 2025. No member country could send more than two men and two women in an event, except where wildcards from the World Indoor Tour allowed up to three.
Two medals changed hands after the finals. Brazil’s Almir dos Santos, originally third in the triple jump, was disqualified for wearing non-regulation shoes. Ethiopia’s Diribe Welteji lost her 1500m silver to anti-doping violations.
Sources
- Six months to go until Nanjing hosts China’s first ever World Indoor Championships | News | Nanjing 25 | World Athletics Indoor Championships
- 2025 World Athletics Indoor Championships – Wikipedia
